The ever growing importance of information
technology (IT) in business necessitates the development of
methods and concepts that enable effective, efficient, and value
oriented usage of the resource IT. For a number of years, the
scientific literature has been discussing the trend towards the
industrialization of IT. This means to transfer industrial
methods to the IT domain. In this context, the term IT service
is gaining in importance. Treating the IT activities as IT
services means more transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness
both for the customer and the enterprise. Besides the
widespread application of industrial practices, the so-called
best practices are increasingly used in the IT domain. Could
other service areas benefit from these IT best practices, just as
IT is profiting from industrial methods and concepts? This
question is addressed in this paper, using the example of the
ITIL framework